Tolerance between ethnic groups is regarded as an essential ingredient of consolidated democracies. The lack of tolerance is likely to cause small- or large-scale violence, leading to both civil war and the breakdown of democracies. That is why it is essential to capture to what extent ethnic groups have tolerance toward one another and what factors account for (in)tolerance. In this study, by using original and comprehensive data derived from a major public opinion survey, conducted in 2013 with a nationwide, representative sample of 7103 participants, we investigate inter-ethnic tolerance among Turks and Kurds in Turkey, a developing democracy in the Muslim world, challenged by increasingly assertive Kurdish ethnonationalism. The Turkish state has been fighting against the PKK (The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan) since the early 1980s and the fighting between Turkish security forces and the PKK has already claimed around 35000 lives. Despite this bloody conflict between the state and outlawed PKK, we do not see mass-scale inter-ethnic violence between Turkish majority and Kurdish minority. Nevertheless, the growing number of incidences of episodic violence in urban areas and increasing anti-Kurdish attitudes and discourses in society lead us to question the level of tolerance between Turks and Kurds. Our preliminary statistical analyses confirm our doubts and suggest that compared to Kurds, ethnic tolerance remains much lower among Turks. In this research we focus on the possible impact of religion-related factors (e.g. religiosity and sectarian differences) on inter-ethnic tolerance and raise the following questions: Why ethnic tolerance among Turks is lower? What factors do account for the variance in Turkish (in)tolerance towards Kurds and for the Kurdish in(tolerance) towards Turks? Are religious individuals more tolerant? Do sectarian differences (Alevi vs. Sunni division among Turks; Shafi vs Hanefi division among Kurds) matter in tolerance towards another ethnic group? What would the implications be for broader theoretical debate on ethnic conflict resolution prospects and democratization processes?

In the aftermath of the first Gulf war in 1991, a new political entity emerged in the north of Iraq: the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). This autonomous region, granted with a no-fly zone and thanks to a US cover succeeded in building a quasi-State in the 2000s. The delimitation of this new political entity is raising questions regarding its relationship with Baghdad. Among them, the question of the border/boundaries between KRG and Baghdad stands at the crossroad of identity and political issues. The line that separates the Kurdish regional Government (KRG) from Baghdad central government is known as the “green line”. It designates the withdrawal line of the Baathist Iraqi Army in 1991. What does this line mean now that the baathist regime - led by Saddam Hussein - has disappeared? How did local actors behave towards this official border delineation after the 2005 Constitution that recognized this line as the southern limit of an autonomous KRG? Why has the article related to the disputed territories along this line not been implemented? What is the role played by hydrocarbon resources - existing in several regions among the disputed territories - in identity politics for KRG? In order to articulate the two dimensions of space and identity at stake in this case study, I will rely on the notion of “borderland” developed in border studies as a means to expand the scope of analysis conveyed by border issues. This notion will help to conceptualize the disputed territories as regions where actions and strategies as well as perceptions of local and regional actors need to be highlighted. Thanks to a fieldwork research and data gathering I will underline the bordering process - articulating Kurdish populated areas and energy soil resources – as a key aspect of KRG’s sovereignty shaping process.

Jazira, the Kurdish region in north-east Syria, is often described as one of the safest areas in the country today, yet more than 200,000 of its inhabitants have fled to Iraqi Kurdistan since the Syrian Uprising began in 2011. Crossing the border is often dangerous, as it remains closed for months on end. Yet, thousands find ways to enter the KRG where many live in large camps made of tents. Over the last two years, I have interviewed numerous refugees in four refugee camps for Syrian Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan. The international media and NGOs usually describe these refugees as being ‘displaced.’ This paper critiques such portrayals by following Zygmunt Bauman whose notion of ‘liquid modernity’ defines our ‘modern times’ by, inter alia, increasing mobility and deterritorialization of populations. It argues that Syrian Kurds’ flow to Iraqi Kurdistan is better understood as ‘movement’ than ‘displacement’ Further, it explicates how UNHCR and Kurdish authorities hinder this movement by confining them in the national boundaries of either Iraq or Syria through the rhetoric of displacement. Firstly, insisting on the term ‘movement’ rather than ‘displacement’ allows my analysis to refuse simplistic explanations that assume all Syrian Kurds have fled from political prosecution. It enables me to examine the social, economic, and political causes and motivations of Syrian Kurds’ flight to Iraqi Kurdistan. This paper shows how the flight of Syrian Kurds is often motivated by economic opportunities, enabled by the geographic proximity of the KRG to Syrian Jazira, the Syrian government’s loose control of its borders, as well as supported by familial affinities across the border. Secondly, this paper explains how UNHCR regulations sustain national sovereignty at the expense of refugees, who are disempowered by the imposition of political identities. Thirdly, it scrutinizes the border policies of both the KRG and PYD (Democratic Union Party) and their rivalry for influence over political developments in Syrian Kurdish areas. Overall, this paper examines institutional and official rhetoric and policies pertaining to Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan and shows how the language of displacement hurts rather than helps those in need.

Rojava (Syrian-Kurdistan) as a borderland in civil war With the takeover of the Kurdish areas in Syria by Kurdish forces and the start of the civil war in Syria struggles between different Kurdish parties (members of the KNC and PYD/PKK-affiliated groups) intensified. This lecture gives an overview over the different Kurdish (and non-Kurdish) political actors in Syrian-Kurdistan (Rojava) and their interdependence with other political forces within Syria and outside of Syria. Therefore it focuses also on the question of borders and borderlands. After the PKK-affiliate PYD took over Rojava most of the legal border crossings between Turkey and the Syria were closed. Simultaneously, due to the civil war the supply of food, fuel and heating material became much more difficult. On the other side also the border crossings between Syrian-Kurdistan and Iraqi-Kurdistan became part of a power struggle between the Iraqi KRG and Barzanis PDK on one side and the PYD on the other side. Consequently this made the illegal or informal crossing of borders crucial for the Syrian Kurds. Informal border crossing became also important for refugees to leave Syria. However, the borders of Syria are often just the first border these refugees have to cross. A mass grave in Amudê demonstrates the deadly consequences of the Fortress Europe for many of these refugees. With the growing conflict between the PKK-affiliated PYD and the Kurdish parties of the Kurdish National Congress, the control of smugglers routs became part of the intra-Kurdish power struggle in Syria. This lecture will light up the importance of the border and the control of informal routs through the Turkish-Syrian border for the intra-Kurdish power struggle in Syria. It is based on first hand fieldwork (an illegal border crossing from Turkey to Syria and back in 2013 and another research in Syrian-Kurdistan in 2014), interviews with representatives of different Syrian-Kurdish parties and observations in Syrian-Kurdistan and the border regions of the Kurdish regions in Turkey. It is a very timely paper and there is hardly any scientific literature to find about it. However, the observations in the field will be connected with theoretical considerations about borderlands and their function for migration, political power, stateness and para-stateness, based on the state theory of Nicos Poulantzas and neo-Poulantzian perspectives.